The present invention relates to cigarettes, and more particularly to cigarettes so shaped to provide advantageous aesthetic and consumer perception characteristics.
Popular smoking articles, such as cigarettes, have a substantially cylindrical rod shaped structure, have no flat sides, and typically have a circular cross-section or an oval cross-section (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,638,818 to Nichols et al). Cigarettes include a charge of smokable material, such as shredded tobacco (e.g., cut filler), surrounded by a paper wrapper thereby forming a so-called "smokable rod." It has become desirable to manufacture cigarettes having substantially cylindrical filter elements aligned in an end-to-end relationship with the smokable rod. Typically, filter elements are manufactured from fibrous materials such as cellulose acetate and plug wrap, and are attached to the smokable rod using a circumscribing tipping material. It also has become desirable to perforate the tipping material and plug wrap, in order to provide for dilution of drawn mainstream smoke with ambient air.
These smoking articles conventionally have been adapted to be arranged in a packaged configuration (i.e., a "package"). Typically, each package contains about 20 cigarettes. One type of popular cigarette package is the so-called "hard pack," "crush proof box" or "hinged lid package." Such a package has a generally cuboid-type shape, is manufactured from resilient paperboard and includes an outer wrap of transparent polypropylene film. Another type of cigarette package is the so-called "soft-pack" manufactured from a less resilient paperboard.
Hinged lid cigarette packages conventionally are made from two paperboard blanks. One blank forms the body and lid of the package. The second blank forms an insert or inner frame which is assembled to the inside of the front and side walls of the package. The inner frame projects above the front and side walls of the package body, and provides a seal between the lid and body when the package is closed. Other types of designs of blanks for hinged lid cigarette packages can be of the type described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,874,581 to Fox et al, 3,944,066 to Niepmann, and 4,852,734 to Allen et al. However, these packages, primarily due to the circular cross-sectional shape of the cigarettes packaged therein, often have substantially large regions of wasted space (i.e., a large void volume) between individual cigarettes as well as between the cigarettes and the walls of the package.
It would be desirable to provide a cigarette so shaped to reduce the void volume within a package of a plurality of the cigarettes to either reduce the amount of packaging material necessary to package such cigarettes or to permit more cigarettes to be packaged in a conventionally sized package. It would also be desirable to provide cigarettes so shaped to have the same firmness as conventional cigarettes with less tobacco cut filler, while providing individual cigarettes having advantageous aesthetic and consumer perception characteristics.